r/theIrishleft

On a regular basis I see threads on here highlighting increased antisocial behaviour by social housing tenants.

It's topical on the news at the moment with lovely new built apartments on the Malahide Road in Dublin where things seem to have gotten to a very bad state.

It seems socially unacceptable to say that there seems to be a huge correlation between anti social behaviour and the number of social housing units in an area or estate or apartment block.

Of course we can't "tar" every individual with the same brush.... but we can talk in general terms, no?

An area of only social housing can lead to slums so mixed living is the way we do things... but that is no comfort to people who bought an apartments and realise that a large percentage of their neighbours are social housed and and a handful are very bad neighbours and the council won't do much about it so their lives can be disrupted for years while trying to sort out this mess.

If I found out that the council bought half the houses in my estate and there were going to be social houses I would put my house up for sale that day.

For people buying apartments or houses how can they find out the number of social houses within their area or apartment block in advance of buying so they can make an informed choice about buying?

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I wanted to share the exact financial breakdown regarding the state’s current expenditure on international protection, as a lot of figures get thrown around in debates without proper sourcing.

According to official Oireachtas figures and recent government reports published earlier this year, the total state spend on IPAS accommodation and support services reached €1.2 billion for 2025.

“Essentially, I want landlords to leave the market. If all these landlords who are hoarding up property try to sell because we're making it less incentivized for them to make profits off housing,” he said, “then there's going to be a flood of the market, so house prices should fall.”

“We're essentially renting everything to the private market.”

Mr Rooke also argued that social housing should be open to all income levels, including those above traditional eligibility thresholds.

“It would do two things. It would start to remove the stigma around social housing and poverty. And it would also start to make more fiscal sense.”

I want to point out a massive contradiction in how public money is handled here, speaking from brutal personal experience.

I have 3rd level degrees and years work experience but severe mental health struggles have completely derailed my life and I’ve been homeless multiple times. Domestic state "support" usually means the local council handing you a canvas tent and a sleeping bag on a freezing night. If you manage to get a hostel bed in SVDP for example, you are packed onto a floor with other men, or put in filthy single rooms covered in bloodstains and everything else you can imagine. If you try to get long-term disability for a mental health condition in Ireland, the barriers are so high it’s practically impossible. On a medical card, you wait 5 months just to see a psychiatrist's assistant. You don't even get to speak to the psychiatrist anymore. Just a periodical review of medication and that's it.

Yet, look at the parallel system the Irish government and NGOs have built for International Protection Applicants coming to Ireland.

Did anyone see the recent news that private asylum housing providers are actually suing the State over reduced demand for their services? It is a flat-out lucrative business. Recent PAC figures reveal the state spent €1.6 billion purely on private accommodation contracts last year. When you add automatic medical cards, legal aid, and weekly cash, the total multi-departmental cost is between €2 - €2.5 billion.

I’ve seen exactly where this goes firsthand here in my city using a local hotel pool and jacuzzi which is heavily occupied by state-funded residents receiving catered meals and daily cleaning. If other IPAS centres have tough conditions, compared to being handed a canvas tent on a street corner, a 4 star hotel setup is golden.

But it goes way beyond the hotels. On top of billions in tax money, there is a huge network of state-funded NGOs providing further supports. Arrivals have access to ring fenced charity schemes including entertainment vouchers, smartphones, laptops. They also have access to fast tracked university scholarships.

By contrast, the entire national budget allocated to domestic homelessness for Irish and EU citizens is just €563 million.

The state and its NGO apparatus spend FOUR times more funding private hotel contracts and secondary systems for arrivals than it allocates to its entire homeless/sick population. Private companies are literally taking the State to court to protect their massive profits, while the Irish government allows its own vulnerable citizens broken by homelessness, addiction and mental health issues to rot on the street.

This isn't anti-immigration, it’s anti-disproportionality. The funding priorities in Ireland are completely skewed.

EDIT: I CANNOT RESPOND TO EVERYONE. IT IS NOT DIFFICULT AT ALL TO VERIFY THESE FIGURES YOURSELF WITH GOOGLE OR CHATGPT SO PLEASE DO IT YOURSELF OR DON'T BOTHER AND STOP DEBATING.

>The Bill, which will be debated in the Dáil on 14th May and voted on on 20th May, is the first proposal in any Western parliament to fully sanction all economic relations with Israel. It would ban trade, investment, financial dealings and state-linked economic activity with Israel, in line with Ireland’s obligations under the Genocide Convention and international law.